RILA's Hughes goes back to government — Ecuador businessman hired former State Department official — Salesforce.com joins BSA — Telemedicine coalition in the works

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RILA’S HUGHES GOES BACK TO GOVERNMENT: Bill Hughes is leaving the Retail Industry Leaders Association to join Majority Whip-Elect Steve Scalise (R-La.) new leadership office. He’ll serve as policy director for Scalise — leaving his gig at RILA where he was executive vice president of government affairs. He’s a 27-year veteran of Capitol Hill — including a gig as House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s policy director for six years. “Bill is an exceptionally talented professional. Bill’s substantial contributions to the retail industry’s public policy efforts are central to RILA’s success in Washington over the past several years. We wish him well as he takes his skills and know-how back to Capitol Hill,” said RILA president Sandy Kennedy in a statement.

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ECUADOR BUSINESSMAN HIRES FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Alvaro Noboa — a wealthy Ecuadoran businessman and perennial presidential candidate — has retained the services of Michael Patrick Glover for lobbying and consulting, according to a new foreign agent registration. Glover was a foreign service officer with the U.S. State Department until July 31, 2013. In the FARA form, he vows not to have any contact with State Department officials until August 1, 2014 — a year after his retirement. Glover will “develop [Noboa’s] relationship with executive branch officials, members of Congress and their staffs, think tanks, academics, non-governmental organizations, international organizations and the media.” He’s being paid $100,000 a year for those services.

SALESFORCE.COM JOINS BSA: BSA | The Software Alliance announced cloud sales company salesforce.com has joined the association. “As the world’s fastest-growing top-ten software company, Salesforce.com is very pleased to join BSA,” said Burke Norton, chief legal officer of salesforce.com, who will serve on BSA’s Board of Directors. “BSA has a long track record of effectively advocating on behalf of the global software industry, and we look forward to collaborating with other industry leaders to advance policies that promote innovation and growth and that expand markets worldwide.” PI’s colleagues at Morning Tech note that the company is no stranger to Washington — it has retained both an in-house lobbyist and The Franklin Square Group for a while now, and just this month the Washington Tax & Public Policy Group registered to lobby for Salesforce.com, filings show.

TELEMEDICINE 'COALITION' IN THE WORKS: Via POLITICO’s Morning eHealth: The American Telemedicine Association said Tuesday it is trying to pool the growing number of medical societies and lobbying groups working on telemedicine issues into a coalition with a more unified voice. "Five years ago, everybody turned to the ATA," said Gary Capistrant, senior director of public policy at the American Telemedicine Association. "Now there's all these other players."During ATA's This Month in Telemedicine webcast Capistrant said ATA held a meeting with groups including the American Medical Association, HIMSS, the Alliance for Connected Care and others working on telemedicine issues to try to form a consensus around certain issues. He mentioned legislation and CMS rules as areas where telemedicine advocates could deliver a more uniform message to elicit change the groups are looking for.

SNOWDEN BACKGROUND CHECK CONTRACTOR BATTLES OVER $200M JOB: The company that conducted background checks on both NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis is under fire over a new administrative support contract with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services awarded earlier this month worth nearly $200 million. Critics of the award, which include a bipartisan group of lawmakers and another federal contractor that lost the bidding war, say that the company, USIS, should not be working on sensitive government projects, given the firm’s track record and ongoing litigation over its past business practices. FCi Federal — the current holder of the contract that involves providing administrative support to the immigration agency — is waging an all-out campaign against rival USIS. The contractor has filed a protest of the contract and brought on a lobbying firm to press its case on Capitol Hill and beyond. Byron has more on the two contractors and their protracted public affairs battle here: http://politi.co/1obsIq6

ELSEWHERE IN THE INFLUENCE WORLD

CAUGHT ASTROTURFING? Slate, DotWeekly and other publications have done some domain registration sleuthing and found evidence that Burson-Marsteller is helping run some “grassroots” pushback on the embattled Washington Redskins name. “This new, probably-not-grass-roots website also appears to be part of a PR operation. This one bears the fingerprints of Burson-Marsteller, a communications firm best known for its crisis management services. Burson-Marsteller has done PR work for, among many others, the manufacturer of the Three Mile Island plant, Johnson & Johnson (in the wake of early-1980s Tylenol poisonings), and military contractor Blackwater USA.” Slate: http://slate.me/1s4t5YC DotWeekly: http://bit.ly/1n3aVB5

WHICH DOWNTOWNERS TOOK ADVANTAGE OF MCCUTCHEON?: “I’m maxed out” used to be a great excuse for downtowners to dodge a call from a cash-starved member. No longer. Thanks to the McCutcheon v. FEC striking down the aggregate limit, there is no such thing as a maxed-out lobbyist. So who has taken advantage of the decision and given more than the $123,200 limit that the Supreme Court tossed? The Center for Responsive Politics crunches the numbers and finds that Ken Kies, Tonio Burgos, Heather Podesta, Lawrence O’Brien, Sam Geduldig, Steve Elmendorf, Pat Raffaniello, Vic Fazio, Jimmy Ryan and Jeffrey MacKinnon are the biggest lobbyist-donors so far this cycle. And all are over the previous aggregate limit. Kate Ackley has this report in Roll Call: http://bit.ly/ULm7v4

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